Saving You
by gschelt
Summary: Thirteen feels that she is beyond help, and decides to end it all. But can Cameron save her? And will she be too late? some Cameron/Thirteen: CamTeen. Oneshot.


I'm going to die here.

What a place for it, an empty examination room. The table's top layer of plastic-covered padding doesn't give at all under my slight figure; I should doubt the paper crinkles at all, until I curl my fingers around it and hear the sound.

So I'm there after all; I was sure I'd drifted out of any kind of body hours ago, but really it's only been minutes. Months, maybe, since my death sentence. Years, perhaps, since my execution began to take shape in my mother's eyes. But minutes since the syringe. It's since fallen to the floor.

It's a wonder why I've left the lights on and my eyes wide open; so I can wait for it all to fade to black? Perhaps so I can see everything leave me all at once; breath, body, bullshit, with my eyes staring wide open like I'm staring into the face of God.

My throat sticks and already I can't feel my toes.

I'm going to die here.

I can't see myself, though I know I'm really not here. It's easy to imagine what I look like in my present state; mascara streaked to my ears and hair tumbling both down the way gravity intends, the way it will stay when I'm dead. Legs dangling over the edge of the table, lips parted. This position I know so well, but the next person to kiss my mouth will not be trying to get me to moan, but trying to breathe life into me.

I know now that it won't work.

Because I'm going to die here.

The door bangs open then and there's a silhouette. It comes towards me, stumbling and saying, "Oh my God, oh shit," and I wonder if it knows that the world is no God and all shit. The edges of everything start to turn numb and foggy black as I'm heaved from the table into a frail pair of arms; knees crooked over one arm and head lolling over the other, my body is too heavy.

"Someone help!" the voice screams, but I can hardly discern the syllables for the buzz of static licking its way up my skin.

"I'm going to die here," I rasp, trying to make the angel understand; it's just too late.

"No you're not," it replies firmly, juggling me in its arms as it tries to cradle me upright. All color evaporates from the world then anyway, and as I sink down a well of icy water, I know it's not worth disagreeing with the blurry figure miles above me who is now giving me mouth-to-mouth. I'm already dead, and have been for months, but the figure will be proven wrong in a matter of minutes, when I have no pulse.

"Damn it," echoes the voice down the rabbit-hole. "I'm going to save you," it says desperately. "I'm going to save you."

My last thought is regret that such a pretty voice will have to be disappointed, then I fall through the arms, through the floor, through the earth, through hell, through my mother, into nothing.

* * *

The fibers of the black blanket enveloping me drag apart, enough for me to see God's face swimming above me.

"Thirteen," she calls, stroking my corpse's cheek somewhere far away from where both of us really are right here.

In my haze, all I feel is sorrow that not even God will call me by name. My body would weep.

The black is sewn back up and I sink, arched as a contortionist, through dark water down to what must be purgatory.

* * *

I'm dry and hollow like a corn husk with a needle in my arm, swirling in an eyes-closed limbo with cotton filling my mouth and heat.

_Beep... beep... beep..._

I breathe on my own, flat on my back again. The taste buds on my fingers tell me a flavor of near-comatosity and nightmares, spiced up with a dash of stark lighting. My eyes and lips flicker; all I know is the world is blurry white ceiling panels and perhaps what I am is human. The effort of remembering exactly what that means for me is too much right now. A halting breath finally rattles through me and wracks my body.

A hospital. I'm in a hospital bed, lying broken and wasted like a dishcloth with a tube jammed into the blue veins of my arm. There's someone sitting near me, exhausted and distracted with a crease in her brow and a hand upon mine. I hadn't even noticed the touch, but then again it took me a few moments to even understand that breath was moving in and out of my body.

"What happened?" I croak; I don't know why I'm here, why I'm ruined, why Cameron is at my bedside holding my hand.

She starts and turns to me, trembling slightly. "You're awake."

I close my eyes and try to get my throat to work. A sense of foreboding is beginning to clog me, seeping through my veins like a leak. Finally, I swallow. "What happened?"

It's silence for a delicate moment, just the sound of her sigh and her thoughts. Then, quietly:

"You attempted suicide." She squeezes my hand.

When I open my eyes again, they're submerged in hot, unexpected tears. I look away, unable to stand the sight of her or the thought of myself. "God," I whisper, my voice cracking in the middle of the word. So this is how I got to be here: spent, humiliated, reduced to nothing. I feel unbearably vulnerable and alone in this bed, but I wish more than anything that Cameron would leave me to hate myself. I'm poison, spit on the sidewalk, Christ on the cross.

"Please go," I manage.

When I finally look up, she's closer. Water is flowing from her blue eyes and dripping from her chin; she's crying for me. Me, of all people.

"I can't just leave you here by yourself," she whispers, her pretty face crumpled tragically and glittering wetly. She clutches my hand tight and brings her face close to mine. "You need someone; anyone. Don't you?"

Her compassion is so intense it's unbearable. She hardly even knows me; she's only my colleague, and yet she's the only one who's here. She's the only one whose tears are dripping on my chest and sliding down my skin under the hospital gown.

"Why do you even care?" I choke.

"Because I can't help but feel anything else."

Then her lips close over mine, salty and sweet and tragic and soft. Nothing is real except for the beep of machinery and her tears mingling with mine. She kisses me gently and I don't understand why, only knowing that I will die again if I have nothing to hold on to. She is close and warm and simply _here_, making my heart beat, and I wrap my arms around her.

Soon my face is pressed against her chest, and I'm sobbing brokenly against her.

She strokes my hair and whispers softly. "I'm going to save you."

Normal 0 


End file.
